Sony DE351

...around I settled on the Sony DE351. I was impressed to find a Sony product for just £39.75 at Index, and it had "ESP-MAX" anti-skip protection and a bass-boost function.

The model listed in the Index catalogue was actually the Sony DE330, but when I got to the till they said they'd sold out and would I accept a substitute model, the DE-351? Since it looked identical I said no problem. From looking at other reviews on Ciao, ...
...It had a pair of Sony "in-the-ear" headphones which fitted comfortably enough in my ears, a mains adapter which meant you could plug the CD player direct to the mains to save battery power, and a instruction booklet.

However I found it easy to set up and use without referring to the manual. Simply insert the batteries, guided by the diagram within the battery compartment, plug in the headphones in the clearly-marked headphone ... more

Hello Ciaoers- some of the older members may remember me! This is my first op for months and months so excuse me if I'm a little rusty. I've been so busy with a new job I have, which involved seven-day shifts, that I've simply been too busy and exhausted to keep up with Ciao or the rest of the internet!

However now I feel used to the hours, the new job with the better pay has allowed me to buy lots of new things to review on Ciao so I'm back with a venegeance!

One of the things I've wanted for ages has been a personal CD player but I somehow never got round to buying one. Then one day in town I'd just bought two brand-new CDs and I was browsing in Dixons. I was amazed to see how much the prices of personal CD players had come down- even the major brands had then available for £40 or less.

I suddenly decided that with prices now so low, and with two brand new CDs in my bag which I was dying to hear, I was going to splash out so I could listen to my new CDs immediately.

Now, lately I've found that I just can't be bothered with electronic devices that have too many feautres on them. When I was younger I wanted products which had loads of bells and whistles to play with and adjust, however much it added to the price and however little I'd use those features once I'd played around with them.

These days, oh I do sound old, I just can't be bothered with all that stuff. I find that on audio equipment especially, a lot of the different "effect" features like different "modes" for different types of music simply make very little difference and are just there to pump in the price and appeal to gadget freaks like I used to be.

These days, I can't be bothered with any product I have to wade through a novel-like manual to operate. I want something that I can more or less figure out how to use myself right out of the box with minimal reference to the manual.

I also value simple quality and reliability above all else, although I admit I still like a product to look nice. Rather like those audio products you buy at somewhere like Richer Sounds- they look very basic and simple for a high price, and lack the bells and whistles and overdone flashing-light designs of the mainstream products you see in Dixons, but that's because the money has gone into simple engineering to make the best sound quality possible, not a lot of useless features which promise to improve the sound but cannot hide the poorer quality given by inferior basic components used to keep the price down.

So when I was looking for a personal CD player, I ignored the ones which you can still get for around £150- I just didn't see what the great advantage would be and I didn't want something so valuable to carry around outside anyway in case I lost it or worse, was mugged for it.

I still wanted a decent brand, though, and an attractive appearance, and any features I felt might be genuinely useful ratehr than just gimmicks- for example I like a lot of bass in my music so a bass boost feature would be nice. I also wanted a system which had some kind of "anti-skip" mechanism to stop the music breaking up as I walked. Apart from that, I just wanted something reliable with good sound.

After looking around I settled on the Sony DE351. I was impressed to find a Sony product for just £39.75 at Index, and it had "ESP-MAX" anti-skip protection and a bass-boost function.

The model listed in the Index catalogue was actually the Sony DE330, but when I got to the till they said they'd sold out and would I accept a substitute model, the DE-351? Since it looked identical I said no problem. From looking at other reviews on Ciao, it looks like this may have been a bargain, as I gather the 330 is simply the same model but without a mains adaptor thrown in.

Anyway, I paid up my £39.75 and sat down on a bench to put it together. As I said, I hate reading instruction manuals now and I wanted to see how simple it was to use without referring to the instructions.

The box contained everything I needed except 2 AA batteries which I bought elsewhere. It had a pair of Sony "in-the-ear" headphones which fitted comfortably enough in my ears, a mains adapter which meant you could plug the CD player direct to the mains to save battery power, and a instruction booklet.

However I found it easy to set up and use without referring to the manual. Simply insert the batteries, guided by the diagram within the battery compartment, plug in the headphones in the clearly-marked headphone jack, pop in a CD and press play. I quickly figured out the other functions without reference to the manual too- the volume up/down, stop, back, forward buttons were self-explanatory, pressing "Sound" turned the Bass function off, on half, or on full, clearly indicated on the LCD display, "Menu" allowed you to use the "shuffle" and "repeat" functions, the "Hold" switch made the CD ignore any key presses so that the CD didn't accidentally get stopped if you knocked a button as you walked along, and the ESP anti-skip protection switch was actually inside the CD flap under where the CD goes, and was set to "ON" as a default.

I am very happy with the looks of the CD player- for a £39.75 product it still looks very classy and understated Sony to me with a silver-grey casing, silver buttons and discreet purple "Walkman" logo. There's also a purple-coloured "window" through to the CD which filters through the rainbow colours of the CD and looks very cool!

The sound quality seems excellent to me though I admit I'm not particularly discerning- the bass boost function seems to work well so I leave it on full all the time for most music, and the headphones seem fine, nice and comfortable.

It's very simple to operate and with the mains charger thrown in and all the basic functions you could want, it's very low-priced. It's lasted me several weeks on the same two Duracell batteries and the power indicator shows two bars of power still remaining- and I've never even used the mains adaptor at home yet.

The player states it can cope with CD-R and CD-RW discs "burnt" on a home PC but as I don't use them, I can't confirm or deny this.

Downsides? Just little niggles. The player doesn't come with a belt clip like cassette walkmans used to, so it's harder to find somewhere to store it when you're walking along- it keep it in a pocket in my backpack. I've also seen a version of this model on sale at HMV without the adaptor for the same price where the lovely silver buttons had been replaced with ugly light grey plastic, so be careful which one you buy because that version lost a lot of its good looks through this tiny cost-cutting measure.

Finally, the battery compartment cover is a little too easy to open if you press it by mistake, but clicks back in quickly enough the batteries don't fall out because they're firmly held in.

For £39.75 I really don't think you can go wrong- anything cheaper than this seems like a false economy as they're far less attractive and with a less good brand-name. But spending £150 on a player seems silly when you could buy nearly four of these for the same price.

I highly recommend the Sony DE351 if you're looking for a basic but not too basic, good-looking, high-quality player from a good brand name.

 

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